


Signs and Portents

by schweet_heart



Series: Harry Potter Fic [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Best Friends, F/M, First Kiss, Friends With Benefits, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Marauders, Marauders' Era, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-02 23:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16797169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart
Summary: “Didn’t you read the sign?” Sirius asks, not bothering to turn his head as his door creaks open. “It saysKeep Out.”James’ footsteps stop in the doorway, hesitating for the barest of moments before he steps inside. “‘Course I read it.” The lightness in his voice denounces him as a liar. “I just figured it didn’t apply to me.”





	Signs and Portents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arthur_pendragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/gifts).



> Ato challenged me to write something in a different fandom for once, so this is entirely her fault :P 
> 
> Written for the dialogue prompt, "didn't you read the sign?"

“Didn’t you read the sign?” Sirius asks, not bothering to turn his head as his door creaks open. “It says _Keep Out_.”

James’ footsteps stop in the doorway, hesitating for the barest of moments before he steps inside. “‘Course I read it.” The lightness in his voice denounces him as a liar. “I just figured it didn’t apply to me.”

Sirius flops over onto his back and glares at the ceiling, arms folded beneath his head, and even though he can see James flinch slightly out of the corner of his eye, he might as well have issued an invitation for all that he succeeds in scaring his friend away. “A lot of things don’t apply to you, apparently,” he mutters, the mattress dipping beneath him as James settles into the space against his side. “Personal space, for one.”

“Come off it, Padfoot.” James’ chin hooks over his shoulder, legs tangling with Sirius’ in an act of provocation so determined it must have been deliberate. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“And there’s this thing called _privacy_ ,” Sirius continues, undaunted. James’ head is resting against his arm, too close for him to be comfortable, aggravatingly near. “Newfangled concept. Means leaving someone alone when their door is shut, something you’ve obviously never heard of.”

“There’s also this thing called sulking,” James says, after a soft breath. The warmth of it tickles Sirius’ ear, makes his spine tingle in spite of himself. “An idea with which you are intimately familiar.” A beat. “She’s hardly going to replace you, Pad,” he says, low. “It was only a kiss.”

Sirius’ room—the one he stayed in every summer, the one that had become his own once his parents kicked him out—wavers slightly as he blinks, hard and slow, the afternoon sunlight spilling in through the window leaving streaks of white against his lids. Dust, he thinks. You can see the dust motes from this angle, glittering like Floo Powder, like—like something very small and incredibly fascinating, more so than his best friend’s face.

“Sirius. Look at me.”

Against his will, Sirius turns and looks. James is mere inches away, serious and solemn, like he’s trying to read Sirius’ mind through the side of his head.

“You’d make a rubbish Legilimens,” is all Sirius can think of to say, but James takes the non sequitur in stride and shakes his head.

“I already know what you’re thinking,” he says. “And it’s not going to happen. Promise you it won’t.”

He lays a hand flat against Sirius’ stomach, palm down, possessive, and Sirius steadies his breathing before he speaks. “I’d be happy for you,” he offers. “If it did. Evans isn’t so bad, really. Now that she’s gotten over trying to kill you.”

“Yeah.” James’ mouth quirks up. “She’s not you, though.”

“Yeah.”

It’s quiet, James’ cheek mashed against his shoulder, James’ hair against his neck, and Sirius counts to ten, twenty, half a hundred breaths before James lets out a sigh and rolls away. His absence leaves a chill along Sirius’ side, and suddenly he can’t stand to leave things there, both of them perpetually on edge, so many things not quite out in the open and the air around them heavy with unspoken words. Never let it be said that Sirius Black doesn’t fight for what he wants.

“Prongs, wait,” he blurts, sitting up and catching at James’ wrist. “Before you go—“

He stops. James turns back, pushing his glasses back up his nose with his free hand, and Sirius tugs him forward until he’s standing in the gap between his legs, looking down with that bemused half-smile that makes Sirius clench his teeth against a wave of longing.

“It’s only fair,” he says, tilting his head up. And maybe James really can read minds, or maybe only Sirius’, because he folds himself sweetly into the kiss without complaint, one hand sliding round to cup the back of Sirius’ neck, letting out a huff that is not quite laughter as he meets his lips. The bastard doesn’t even seem surprised, licking into Sirius’ mouth like he’s been practicing every day of his life, whereas Sirius is undone by the weight of his own wanting, torn between the desire to draw back, to play it cool, and the burning need to make this the best kiss James has ever had.

The whole thing is stupid, really. They’ve always been too close, too much, too fast, and there’s so much between them now that a kiss can’t be anything but an afterthought, a paltry addendum to the nights spent exchanging secrets in the dark, to all the times that James has carried him through his mother’s rages and his brother’s petty jealousies, the pain of being the least favourite child. It’s over in a few seconds anyway, the act of it, but the panic lasts.

D _id Lily feel like this_ , Sirius wonders, dizzy. _Did she even have any idea_ —

“Sirius.” James has a hand on his cheek, thumb rasping against stubble. “Sirius, I—“

“Don’t,” Sirius says hoarsely. He pulls back, grasping for whatever shreds of dignity he has left, for some way to pretend that it was only ever a harmless joke. “It’s—fine. Now we’re even.”

It’s not fine. It has never been fine, but even though James’ eyes accuse him—liar, they say, liar, _liar_ —James himself does not protest. Perhaps he, too, finds it easier not to say some things out loud.

“I just wanted you to know,” he says quietly, awkward but genuine, the same way he’d said to Moony that they would never let a little thing like a werewolf bite screw up their friendship, “that it will always be the two of us against the world, yeah? Always.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sirius says, and he even half believes it. James has always been an excellent liar, especially when it comes to things like this. “It’ll take more than a pretty girl to come between us.”

It’s a nice dream, while it lasts.


End file.
